LAX83FA160 · Mooney M20E
Mooney M20E · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From 102 · Lakeport, CA to Palo Alto Airport (PAO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX83FA160
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Mooney M20E
- Aircraft type
- Mooney M20
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N2571W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 102 · Lakeport, CATo Palo Alto Airport (PAO), Palo Alto, CA
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- In flight encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft handling, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Cobb, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT HAD LEFT HIS ACFT AT LAKEPORT, CA FOR MAINTENANCE TO BE PERFORMED & BARROWED MOONEY M20E, N2571W. BEFORE THE PLT TOOK OFF, THE OWNER HEARD HIM TALKING TO SOMEONE ABOUT THE WX, BUT NO RECORD OF A WX BRIEFING WAS FOUND. WHILE EN ROUTE TO PALO ALTO, CA, THE ACFT CRASHED ON THE SIDE OF A MOUNTAIN AT AN ELEVATION OF APRX 3600 FT MSL. THE IMPACT OCCURRED ON 30 DEG DOWN SLOPING TERRAIN. AN EXAMINATION OF THE CRASH SITE REVEALED THE ACFT HAD CRASHED IN A STEEP NOSE DOWN, LEFT WING LOW ATTITUDE. SEVERAL PEOPLE HEARD THE ACFT & REPORTED THAT THE ENGINE SOUNDED NORMAL, EXCEPT IT SOUNDED LIKE THE PLT APPLIED FULL POWER JUST PRIOR TO IMPACT. WITNESSES AGREED THAT THE UPPER SLOPES OF THE MOUNTAIN WAS OBSCURED BY CLOUDS & THE BOTTOM OF THE CLOUD LAYER WAS BETWEEN 3500 & 3800 FT MSL. THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PLT HAD LOGGED ONLY ABOUT 7 HRS OF SIMULATED INSTRUMENT TIME.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX83FA160
- Event ID
- 20001214X42465
- Case number
- LAX83FA160
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d4356c1e16109c4c933c3df652bff6897c61da47ab9d89224dfd4d68a11be376; retrieved 2026-09-21T07:00:42.248Z.